Most donation prices rise for 2017 season tickets

For many years, WSU football season ticket prices have remained pretty flat. That’s especially true when it comes to the donations, or “seat backs”, required to purchase your tickets. Back in September, we revealed President Schulz and athletic director Bill Moos’ plan to get athletics into the financial black, part of which included this:

“The plan expects donations from the Cougar Athletic Fund to double by FY2019 and that seems like an awfully lofty goal considering how much trouble the CAF has in increasing donations so quickly.”

So it should come as a fairly minor surprise then that, for the first time in recent memory, donation levels are going up for most WSU football season tickets. Compared to 2016 (and for that matter, many years previously), the 2017 season ticket map is practically lit up like a Christmas tree. And some folks near the top rows of the north side will see a pretty hefty increase. Here’s 2016:

And here is 2017:

A lot to unpack here. We’ll start with the easy side, the north. Seat backs went up there but the lower half of section 24 was actually brought down to $0. They compensated for that by raising the upper half of the section and the lower part of 25 by $50 per seat. The upper half of 25 and 26 also went up similar amounts.

The south side of the stadium is, well, a hell of a lot more complex than it was before. The money increase in section 24 is actually a brand new tier and is now at the top of sections 3 and 9.

So where’s the “hefty increase” I spoke of earlier? It’s at the top of section 4 through 8 in the tiers underneath the overhang. Those small portions at the very top used to be, well, smaller. Now, they extend down to the edge of the upper deck overhang. If you were already in those sections, I have good news! Your prices actually went down $100-$150 per seat, depending on where you are.

The flip side is the bad news: if you aren’t already in those sections but you are now, your donation price went up substantially. In section 5,6 and 7 you’re paying $200 more per seat and in 4 and 8, you could be paying an extra $250 per seat. That’s an increase of 125% for some.

Yikes.

UPDATE (2/3, 12:15p.m.): SID Bill Stevens confirmed for us the rows effected are 36 down to 28. So those in 32 to 28 are now paying a lot more for each ticket.

For most everyone else on the north side, you’ll be paying $50 more than you did last year for every seat.

The biggest price increase though comes in the club seats. For those sitting outside the 20s, you’ll be paying $150 more per seat this year which is less of an increase than the folks below you or inside the 20s where it’s $300 more per seat. Percentage wise, they’re actually smaller increases than many of the seats on the deck below but money wise, certainly the largest.

Again, this is part of the move towards getting athletics into better shape financially and the first seat back increase in quite some time. There was no warning about the increase (and it’s going to catch those who are in a brand new tier without moving seats by surprise) but it’s all part of getting the athletics budget to where it needs to be; though increases should’ve happened incrementally over the years, which would’ve been the much better way to do it.

Deadline to renew is March 31st.